


a thousand stars

by ophelialilies



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe – Italy, Established Relationship, Fluff, Happy Ending, Lovers, M/M, Romance, Set in Italy in Summer, Summer Love, loosely inspired by call me by your name, markhyuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:08:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24287911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ophelialilies/pseuds/ophelialilies
Summary: perhaps another year has passed, the earth has performed another dance around the sun, and the seas are still just as far apart as they were before, but everything about Donghyuck remains the same. he still loves to swim in the gorge between their estates, still spends his days reading old books in the long grass, and he still craves gelato no matter the time of day.most importantly, though, his moles still remind Mark of constellations in the night’s sky.
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee
Comments: 36
Kudos: 158





	a thousand stars

**Author's Note:**

> i had the idea for this story while talking to the lovely [aiden](https://twitter.com/whinymark), and had been set on writing it since! 💕
> 
> this story is very special to me (i say that every time, but they're all special to me hehe), and it made me very happy to write. i hope you like it just as much!
> 
> i'll see you at the end! happy reading ✨
> 
> ophelia x

Perhaps another year has passed, the earth has performed another dance around the sun, and the seas are still just as far apart as they were before, but everything about Donghyuck remains the same. He still loves to swim in the gorge between their estates, still spends his days reading old books in the long grass, and he still craves gelato no matter the time of day. Most importantly, though, his moles still remind Mark of constellations in the night’s sky.

The window is open and the blinds pulled, allowing the midday golden sun to pour through the glass and bathe the white sheets in liquid amber. Mark can smell the sweet scent of the flowers in bloom outside, can smell his mother’s baking downstairs and the early signs of rain that will no doubt come this afternoon. He can hear his father playing piano in the garden, the birds chirping in the tall trees outside and the local children playing on their bikes in the field, and yet none of those things are the things that he pays attention to.

How could he possibly do so, when there’s a boy dipped in golden splayed beneath his fingertips. His eyes are closed, long eyelashes fanning out across sunkissed cheeks, his heart shaped lips curling into a lazy smile.

“You haven’t changed,” Donghyuck says, his voice rough and unused, yet still just as musical to Mark’s ears. A small laugh escapes the other boy’s lips, and Mark listens in pleasure as the sound fills the small amount of space between them. He feels the sound vibrate in Donghyuck’s bare chest, beneath the warm sweaty skin that he runs his hands along. It glistens in the midday sunlight, just the way he remembers it doing every summer before.

“Neither have you,” he whispers back, moving his head to trail his lips along Donghyuck’s stomach, leaving delicate kisses along his hip bones and thighs. He does so slowly, cherishing every touch and sensation to make up for all of the months that have been lost between them.

“What was it like?” Donghyuck asks, rolling his head to the side so that their eyes can meet. Sunlight dances behind his irises, glinting there as if that’s where it belongs, and Mark wonders if he could ever forget the way they seem to swirl like molten honey. The way that summer is a person. A person named Donghyuck.

Mark hums against the other boy’s skin, moving his lips higher until they’re grazing over his chest, over his collarbones which rise like the Apennine mountains only to fall again into the valley below. “What was what like?” he asks when he reaches the boy’s jawline, leaving tender kisses along it and pausing under his ear, because he knows that is where Donghyuck is most sensitive. From the way Donghyuck gasps, time hasn’t changed a thing.

“Your year, I mean,” Donghyuck speaks again, his voice sounding a little weaker. His eyes are clamped shut again, his body humming with tension as he reaches a hand to wrap around Mark’s neck. Before Mark can answer the question, he’s being pulled into a kiss that leaves him breathless.

It doesn’t matter how many times, or over how many years, they have done this. Every time that their lips connect it feels like it’s for the first time. And perhaps it’s the days they’ve walked alone – on opposite sides of the world, dreaming of summertime spent countryside – but every time it feels new. As if they’re still just the same two little boys who fell in love all those years ago. 

They pull apart for air, out of necessity more than anything, but Donghyuck’s hand remains tangled in Mark’s hair.

“It was the same,” Mark answers, suddenly remembering that there was a question he was supposed to be answering.

“The same how?” Donghyuck prods, his eyes fluttering open again to meet Mark’s gaze. There’s something overwhelmingly fond there, a familiarity and intimacy that unsettles the timid butterflies in Mark’s stomach. He feels himself blush, whether at the sight or at the thought that he can never get over it, he’s not sure.

“The same as in, nothing different. I’m still studying, still seeing friends, working. The same thing I report every year,” Mark mumbles back, rather unenthusiastically. Donghyuck is smiling, his eyes crinkling into half moons and Mark waits for the laugh that is no doubt on the horizon. The fact that he had expected it doesn't prepare him for the sound, though. There’s a beat of silence, one that only the two of them can understand, and Donghyuck waits patiently. “The same as in, I missed you again.”

Some of the mirth that had been dancing in the other boy’s eyes fades away, but the fondness and warmth there never leaves. “I missed you, too,” Donghyuck responds after a moment, his voice raw but unwavering. Mark finds himself looking away, unable to meet the intensity of Donghyuck’s gaze. “More than you could know.”

At those words their eyes meet again, Mark unable to resist searching them out once more. The sun is high in the sky and the day is at its most ripe, and yet Mark doesn’t notice the sweat that sits where skin meets skin, or the way the sheets are crumpled and tangled with their naked limbs. All he notices is the warmth that blooms in his chest at those words.

“Perhaps I do know,” Mark whispers back, his finger tracing shapes on Donghyuck’s chest absentmindedly.

In the silence that falls, the darkness that appears as Mark lets his own eyes fall closed, he relives every moment shared between them like it’s all just a dream. The mornings spent by the shoreline, watching the sun rise on the horizon and dip the entire coast in lilac. The afternoons spent at the piazza, Donghyuck insisting that he only wants one flavour of gelato but then also eating the majority of Mark’s. (Donghyuck would laugh mercilessly at the time, but Mark could always rely on the guilt that would come after. He just had to wait patiently and soon Donghyuck would be scampering off, returning with another scoop of whichever flavour he had stolen from Mark, a guilty smile on his face and an apology on his lips).

Mark relives the evenings spent under the stars, gazing at the constellations and galaxies in the middle of an open field with only the crickets and each other for company. He remembers the dinners spent with Donghyuck’s family, his parents insisting on cooking an entire feast in celebration of their long standing friendship. (And Mark’s parents would always return the favour the next evening, like clockwork).

He remembers the lazy afternoons spent by his father’s grand piano, Donghyuck sprawled across the top in nothing but a singlet and shorts, singing the notes to the song Mark plays with incredible ease. His voice has always been beautiful, and it’s one of the things that Mark misses the most when each summer comes to a close and they’re forced to say goodbye for another year.

“Where did you go?” Donghyuck whispers, and the sound of his voice brings Mark back to the moment he had long since wandered from. Donghyuck is still watching him from where he lays beneath, hand still tangled with his hair.

“You’re like a constellation, you know,” Mark says without hesitation, the thought translating itself into words before he can even try to stop it. (Although, it’s not like he has a reason to, anyway).

“What do you mean?” Donghyuck asks, his voice unsure. His eyes search out Mark’s the way they always do, with such trust and vulnerability, as if within Mark he always expects to find answers. Mark has never been great with words, so he decides to use actions instead. (After all, do they not speak louder than words?).

“Let me show you,” Mark whispers, and Donghyuck sighs in content, as if he knows exactly what Mark is going to do. Perhaps he does. A sweet sound – more akin to a giggle than anything else – tumbles from the other boy’s pretty lips as Mark lowers his own once more, pressing a gentle kiss to the highest point of his cheekbone. There’s a delicate mark there, only a few shades darker than his golden skin, but just dark enough to be seen. To be known, and gosh, does Mark know it well.

He trails his lips further, leaving another kiss on the mole just below it, on the softer part of Donghyuck’s cheek. The boy laughs again, wriggling a little and smiling a smile brighter than the sun outside. One of his hands comes to interlace with Mark’s free hand, the one that isn't cupping Donghyuck’s chin. He kisses the mole on his nose, the mole just above his lips and the one below them, too. It’s not the easiest task in the world, as Donghyuck’s laughter is rather distracting, but the sweet sound is worth it.

“Is this supposed to make me understand something?” Donghyuck asks, his voice warm with jest. He rolls his head to the side to meet eyes with Mark who has now moved to the marks on the boy’s neck. The ones that are always there, summer and winter, day and night. The ones that don’t fade when the boys pack their bags and return home as the season fades.

“You don’t understand it yet?” Mark mumbles against Donghyuck’s skin, no longer just warm but burning up at his touch. He’s reached the moles which decorate Donghyuck’s collarbones, his sternum and his stomach, which fall across his body like splatters of ink, like words on a page that Mark can never seem to forget.

Donghyuck hums in disagreement, a small shake of his head to match. His grin has faded to a lazy lopsided smile, and the sight brings a smile of its own to Mark’s lips. Donghyuck looks so beautiful bathed in the light of summer, as if the season were invented purely for him. Solely so that he could look like this now. 

“Explain it to me.”

Mark savours the moment, taking his time to find the right words as he caresses Donghyuck’s skin lower and lower, following the map of the stars like a sailor at sea, guided through the darkness by the light of the sky alone.

“You’re like a constellation,” Mark answers when he finds the words again. Donghyuck stills, his body tensing as if straining to listen to every word that Mark may say. “The kind that you can only see in summer, when the air is clear enough, and the moon is shining.”

There’s a beat of silence as Mark lifts his head, momentarily forgetting his pursuit to meet Donghyuck’s eyes. When he does, they’re intense, burning with something unreadable. They’re swirling again, like a galaxy of mourning stardust, and he can see a myriad of colour there beneath the surface, so barely concealed that he knows Donghyuck wants him to know it’s there, too. Pain swirls with longing, love and belonging – a fracturing of light as the sun loses itself in his eyes.

“ _Ursa minor_ ,” the words leave Mark’s lips on their own, as if wandering from his mind to his mouth in an instant. For a moment, he doesn’t know where the words came from, when suddenly they come to life in his mind, written on the page of a book from many years ago, buried deep somewhere in his mother’s study. “That’s what you are. My little bear.”  
  
Donghyuck giggles again at his words, but Mark’s too lost in the past to notice. Memories of days spent with his head buried in books are resurfacing, washing over him like waves crashing against the coast. He remembers tracing his finger over the stars, his mother naming every constellation that he touched.

“Where do you go when winter comes? Where do you hide?”

The words hang between them in the silence that falls, familiar but tense nonetheless, heavy with the burden of many unspoken words. Donghyuck watches him and he watches Donghyuck in turn, shifting to sit upright and get a better look at the other boy. He doesn’t mind the wait; they’ve done this many times before. Many conversations like this have transpired between them, behind closed doors or beneath the shade of apricot trees, beside messy bookshelves in his mother’s old study or by the shoreline of the ocean, watching the sun recede below the horizon. And so, Mark waits. 

After a moment Donghyuck releases their interlaced hands. Mark watches as his own falls to the side, splayed on the bed sheets. Donghyuck lifts his now unoccupied hand, inching closer toward Mark until it’s resting over his heart, a beacon of warmth against Mark’s pale skin.

“I'll always be here, though. Even when I go,” his fingers spread themselves wider, covering more of Mark’s chest. “Even when _you_ go. A part of me will always live here.”

As if it can hear the words too, Mark’s heart picks up its rhythm in his chest, finding a faster pace to match the racing of his mind. Perhaps Donghyuck can feel it too, but Mark doesn’t mind at all. In fact, he wants him to feel it, to know what the other boy’s words do to him as well.

A smile replaces the serious look on Donghyuck’s face, not playful like the earlier ones but still just as warm. Radiant.

“But you know that already, don’t you?” Donghyuck says quietly, and there’s no one around who could possibly overhear him, but he whispers the words anyway. As if they are words crafted only for Mark and the stars above to hear.

Mark finds himself smiling, too. There’s a heat rising to his cheeks, like the blush of a midday rose in bloom, not unlike the ones growing just outside the open window. Perhaps it’s the time apart, but something about Donghyuck never fails to steal the breath from his lungs, to leave his head spinning, his heart pounding, like a young child falling in love.

“I do,” Mark responds, and he can't be sure the words were loud enough for Donghyuck to hear. Either way, he must know what Mark means to say, because his smile widens and his dimples come out, those elusive tendrils of happiness showing their faces like stars hiding behind the moon.

“If I'm your _ursa minor_ ,” Donghyuck says as the hand at Mark’s heart shifts to wrap around Mark’s neck, pulling him closer until Mark is falling on his chest with a gasp followed by a laugh. “Then you are my _polaris_.”

Mark almost snorts at that, a stupid grin coming to his lips at Donghyuck’s joke.

“That was terrible,” he mumbles into Donghyuck’s chest, his eyes fluttering closed as one of Donghyuck’s hands runs through his hair, the other tracing circles in the exposed skin of his back.

“Yeah, but you loved it,” Donghyuck bites back, and Mark doesn’t need to look to know there’s a smile on his face.

“No, I just love you.”

And Mark had thought many times about the day he would say those three silly words to Donghyuck, but he never expected it to be by accident. For it to be a phrase that slips so easily from his mind, tumbling to his lips before he can stop them, as if he ever really wanted to. Donghyuck doesn’t freeze, doesn’t tense up or pull away. He pulls Mark closer, holds him tighter, whispering the same three words into the crown of Mark’s head without hesitation.

And then Mark is lifting himself up once more, propped on one elbow as he takes Donghyuck’s delicate cheek in his other hand. Donghyuck’s head is turning, his eyes moving to meet Mark’s, only to close again as Mark closes the space between them for the first time in what feels like years. It always feels like this, with Donghyuck. As if kissing him is his life force and Mark can’t get enough. Like he’s a fish who doesn't know how to swim, doesn’t know how to breathe or live without the ocean to do it for him.

Their lips fit together better than any deity could have designed. A pure coincidence, a fate born from the chance that perhaps they are made from the same stardust, birthed under the same sun, drunk in love on the land where Bacchus danced centuries ago. Donghyuck sighs into the kiss as he always does, his delicate breath tickling at Mark’s neck, his pretty eyes hidden behind golden eyelids. They chase each other in a game of push and pull, like two koi fish circling each other. The only difference is, unlike the koi fish they can’t do this forever. Soon they will need to breathe again. 

That truth makes itself known several days later. Mark finds himself on the porch of their house, barefoot on the marble and his parents beside him. They’re smiling and waving as Donghyuck and his family pull out of their driveway across the field, backing up and turning to trace the gravel path through town and out to the highway.

Mark isn’t smiling, though. He’s watching Donghyuck, who sits in the backseat of their old chevrolet, his head turned to watch Mark through the backseat window. Their eyes meet, and even though it’s across a considerable distance, Mark can see that same light swirling in his eyes. That same myriad of raw emotion dancing there, only for Mark to see. To understand.

The car hums to life once more, its wheels tracing their way along the path, further and further away from where Mark and his family stand. Soon Donghyuck has disappeared behind the glass and the car is out of sight, a spec on the horizon, left on its own to dance with the clouds.

His parents sigh beside him, dusting their hands and moving back inside. Mark stays there though, feet pressed to the cool marble tiles. Maybe it’s only for a minute, or perhaps an hour, but he stays. Waits. For the moment that the earth begins its next dance around the sun, and summer sways closer and closer.

He revels at least in the comfort that nothing will change. That he and Donghyuck will still be the same, that his moles will always remind Mark of the night’s sky, and that if nothing else, they will always have summer. He will always have his _ursa minor_ to guide him home when he gets lost.

_Arrivederci, Donghyuck. Alla prossima estate._

**Author's Note:**

> _kiss me hard before you go, summertime sadness_
> 
> salve! what did you think?
> 
> my lovely friend angel made a thread of donghyuck's _ursa minor_ moles, you can check it out [here](https://twitter.com/haechanfairy/status/1247751396092338183)!
> 
> thank you again aiden for facilitating this wonderful idea, i love you and i hope you liked it 💕
> 
> please leave kudos or let me know what you thought in the comments! 
> 
> thank you for reading and lots of love,  
> ophelia 🌷
> 
> come talk to me !! [twitter](https://twitter.com/ophelialilies) & [curious cat](https://curiouscat.me/ophelialilies)


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